SIDA Sponsors US$4Mln for Vietnam's SMEs via PRISED Project

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will co-operate to develop a four-year project themed ‘Poverty Reduction through Integrated Small Enterprise Development’ (PRISED) project under the sponsorship of the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). This is to encourage the development of local economies, thus helping job generation and poverty reduction in rural areas in six provinces in Vietnam.

 

Swedish ambassador to Vietnam, Anna Lindstedt, said that over the past 15 years, Vietnam’s economic growth and poverty reduction rates were high but uneven in localities nationwide. While several government and donor programmes support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, there seems to be less support for small-sized enterprises of the unofficial economic sector. The PRISED project is to settle the issues.

 

Developed based on two projects ‘Business start-up and business capability building’ in the 1998-2004 period and ‘Development support for small-sized enterprises in the Mekong sub-region’ in the 2002-2004 period, the PRISED project will be carried out in six provinces. Initially, four provinces Binh Phuoc, Quang Ngai, Tra Vinh and Thanh Hoa have been chosen for the project. Two other provinces will be chosen in 2007. Capitalised at around US$4.397 million, the project will be implemented between September 2005 and August 2008.

 

At a conference held recently in Hanoi by VCCI, ILO and SIDA to launch the project, Tran Thi Thuy, vice president of VCCI, said that the project was in line with the Vietnamese Government’s recent approaches, such as the fifth Party Central Committee Plenum’s resolution on private sector development, a comprehensive strategy on economic growth and poverty elimination and hunger eradication, and a Plan on developing small and medium-sized enterprises in the 2006-2010 period, which is being developed by the Vietnamese Government. Thuy went on to say that VCCI, local authorities, business associations, and business support service supply organisations should receive support for capability building in order to manage the development of local economies and develop their own programmes independently.

 

Rose Marie Greve, director of ILO in Hanoi, said that in its early phase, the project would help provincial authorities promote their dialogues and co-operation with the business community and other relevant agencies in order to build and develop economic strategies in accordance with concrete needs of each locality and socio-economic master plans of each province. The project would then promote partnership among localities to implement their development strategies.

 

Talking about the landscape of small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam, the chairman of the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, said that priorities should be given to improving business environment, business partnership and community, and in particular, improving activities of organisations which provided support for small and medium-sized enterprises. Also regarding the issue, chief consultant to the PRISED project Kees Van der Ree said enterprises’ management and organisation remained poor. At the same time, Vietnam’s under-developed business support and financial services could not meet the demand of small and micro-sized enterprises. Other factors which need improving include enterprises’ awareness about market alliance and value chain, about women entrepreneurs and gender equality. From that point of view, the PRISED project’s goals are not only to improve provincial business environment and business development support market but also to use effectively the mass media to help micro-sized enterprises get access to information, knowledge and business support services.

 

The project’s main tools and services include training courses on legal policies for authorities at provincial and district levels, training and consultancy services for small sized enterprises’ associations, analysis and upgrades for value chains for a high effectiveness in small and micro-sized enterprises; encouragements for women entrepreneurs and support for small and micro-sized to develop their infrastructure and provide services.